Lisa’s photos from the first Love Registry are (back) up, in attractive alphabetical form!

I made my first uppama yesterday morning, and despite a lot of last-second ingredient substitutions, it came out so well that we’d demolished the whole thing by mid-afternoon. Maybe a little too heavy on the stirring to make often, but I’m glad I did it. Here’s how I made it, adapted from Madhur Jaffrey:

Put 1/4 cup peanut or canola oil in a big heavy nonstick pan over medium heat. When it’s hot enough to pop mustard seeds, add a little asafoetida, then a teaspoon of brown mustard seeds. When they start popping, add a dried red chile and a couple of teaspoons of chana dal or yellow split peas; stir the whole thing until the peas turn reddish, which won’t be long (the mustard seeds that haven’t popped yet will stick, so keep ’em in motion so they don’t burn). Add some curry leaves, if you’ve got them, stir once, and then add three tablespoons of very finely chopped red onion. Hisssss. Fry until the onion starts to brown at the edges. Add a teaspoon each of finely grated fresh ginger and, if you like it, finely chopped fresh green chile. Stir a few seconds more and add a packed cup of green cabbage shreds and a quarter-cup of peas (frozen & defrosted is fine). Hisssss. Stir for a couple of minutes, add 3 tablespoons of water, cover it, and turn it down to low for 3 or 4 minutes.

Now comes the labor-intensive part. Have 1 3/4 cups of water boiling in a kettle. Uncover the pan, turn the heat back up to medium, and add a cup of non-instant semolina or Cream of Wheat. Stir and fry it for about five minutes, until it turns golden. Turn the heat back down to low and add 3/4 teaspoon of salt. Then, over the course of five minutes, dribble in the boiling water a little at a time, and stir it until it’s absorbed before adding the next dribble. After it’s all been absorbed, keep stirring it & breaking up lumps until the whole thing is light and fluffy–could be as much as 10 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh cilantro, stir for another minute, turn the heat off, rest your weary arm and eat.